Premanufactured buildings (hereinafter "manufactured homes") such as mobile homes, trailers, prefabricated houses and the like are manufactured at a central manufacturing site, and upon completion the structures are moved to a location where they are to be permanently located and occupied. Because the manufactured home is designed to be easily moved from the site where it is manufactured to its permanent location, the structure is not originally built upon a permanent foundation at the manufacturing site. Rather, the structure is constructed upon a pair of parallel, horizontally extending I-beam joists. The joists are displaced inwardly from the opposing side walls of the manufactured home, and temporary wheels are attached to the joists so that the manufactured home can be transported over public highways to its installation site, where the home likely will be mounted on piers, such as concrete blocks, pilings, or stabilizing jacks. It is important that the home be anchored in position on the piers, typically with the use of ground anchors and ties extending from the ground anchors to the framework of the home, so as to avoid the home being shifted off of its piers by strong winds or seismic action. Serious damage to the manufactured home and even human injury can occur if a home is inadvertently shifted laterally off of its piers or tilted over.
Various types of stabilizing devices have been used to stabilize such manufactured homes, to keep the homes from moving in response to wind forces and earth movement. Such devices have included guy wires or straps tying the home to ground fixtures or ground anchors which are either permanently or temporarily inserted into the ground. A traditional approach to providing wind storm protection for manufactured homes consists of an anchor having a shank with one or more helical plates at the bottom of the shank which can be rotated to move the anchor into the ground, and cold rolled steel strapping installed as a diagonal tie between the anchor head and the lower main frame of the manufactured home. Anchors of this type are taught in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,758,460; 5,697,191; 5,784,844; and 5,850.718.
The vertical support for the manufactured home usually is provided by the piers located under the parallel joists of the main frame of the manufactured home, with the piers being spaced longitudinally along the parallel joists at approximately 8 feet intervals. The piers typically are placed upon a flat planar stabilizer foundation plate having a much larger surface area than the pier itself and which stabilizes the pier at its interaction with the ground surface.
While the foregoing stabilizing systems have been more successful in reliably tying down manufactured homes, these and other prior art systems have not successfully addressed the problem of the manufactured home tending to tilt about the parallel support joists and their piers. The support joists are desirably displaced inwardly from the opposed sides of the manufactured home so as to provide adequate support for the intermediate area of the floors of the stricture. Also, it is desirable to place the supporting joists inwardly of the opposed side edges so that the wheels of the transport device can be placed beneath instead of out to the side of the structure when traveling on the highway. The result is that there is a substantial overhang of the side portions of the manufactured home beyond the parallel support joists, so that a substantial amount of the structure is supported by the joists on a cantilever basis. When a lateral force, such as high wind, engages the windward side of a manufactured home, the home tends to tilt about the leeward joist and its piers, so that the weight of the portion of the home which overhangs the leeward joist and its piers aids in tilting the home.
A solution to the above noted problem can be achieved by the placement of side supports along the opposed side edges of the manufactured home. However, there has been no practical, economical and effective structure available for this type of side support for manufactured homes.
It is to the above noted problem that this invention is directed.